


Austenism

by applecameron



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 15:30:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7177469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My Arthur is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Austenism

Sometimes Eames feels like an Austenite gentleman. _My Arthur is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld_.

Then he gets a grip on himself, shrugs his body and spirit in a slow roll through the shape of his default indolent persona, to ensure its fit, and makes a suggestive remark. Witty, yet forgettable, and entirely unlike Jane Austen. 

_If only you will relieve my suffering, and consent to be mine_. 

But Arthur knows his part instinctively; part of Lizzie Bennet's allure is her self-sufficiency, that she is whole in herself, not needing a man. (And not above needling one.) As Arthur does not need him, so, too, Arthur does not like Cobb's ham-handed attempts (shades of Lady Catherine importuning Lizzie) to keep them apart. Superficially, Eames' persona is far more Wickham than Darcy or Bingley or any other upright gentleman, making him a danger to an unmarried Arthur's virtue and good name. _Pfeh_. (Really, Cobb. What purely upright gentleman could hold Arthur's attention? Blind to the passage of years, though, Cobb still sees Arthur as the young man he was when they met. Perhaps it is a way of clinging to Mal's memory, and thus, forgivable.) Even though Eames has succumbed to Austenisms, Arthur is in truth no such heroine, forcibly bracketed in life by male protectors. He is his own. 

_Love me_. Graceless. Far too direct for Austen. And yet, 

Sometimes Arthur looks back at him as if Eames had opened his mouth and confessed his unchanged hopes in some leafy path near Longbourne, in a stolen moment whilst prying eyes are only seconds away from their discovery. 

Sometimes Arthur looks back at him as if he is about to proclaim his thoughts and feelings toward Eames have warmed, as Lizzie's do toward Darcy, and Eames is filled with a feeling of sunlight. (Perhaps, perhaps, instead of consenting to be Eames', Eames could belong to him? And they could write their own romance. Together. With, perhaps, an homage to Jane Austen, so long as Arthur doesn't mind, too very much.) 

(He doesn't, he proclaims, later. He doesn't mind at all.)


End file.
